In any case, I would like to humbly inform you of a fantastic, free Source mod: Fortress Forever.

Fortress Forever is, in essence, a modern rendition of Team Fortress Classic that “is supposed to be about bringing Team Fortress to modern times, evolved into something more fun and appealing without losing its soul.”

Originally a Quake mod by Robin Walker, John Cook, and Ian Coughley, Team Fortress combined the strategic class, team-based elements in 1996 that we see in Fortress games today with fast pace of Quake to make a dynamic and engaging experience for all involved. It became widely popular mod that was played by the thousands.

The next iteration of Team Fortress came about as a mod for Half-Life in the form of Team Fortress Classic, which became wildly popular and successful.

Team Fortress “revolves around a number of teams competing in a variety of game modes with players selecting one of nine classes to play as… The way a player acts in a game is mostly defined by which class they select, and as such, Team Fortress Classic relies heavily on teamwork between players of different classes.”

Fortress Forever was released on September 13, 2007 as a free Source mod that was heavily inspired by Team Fortress Classic, but was nonetheless built from the ground up. The idea of Fortress Forever is to provide new players with an engaging, endlessly compelling game to get engrossed in while at the same time providing Team Fortress Classic players with a pleasing, more modern alternative to their beloved, timeless game.

The gameplay is fast-paced, dynamic, engaging, and very difficult to master, similar to the beloved Quake physics. The nine classes that have been ingrained in the game for so long are all dutifully represented in style in the Source engine. The developers are active and engaged with the community, which is comprised of quite a few passionate, dedicated, and helpful individuals. It is an enjoyable, adrenaline-pumping, fantastic team-based game that is sure to please both TFC and Quake players with its superb, fast physics and its awesome gameplay.

There is a relatively active pickup community, which can be found at #ff.pickup on QuakeNet, and spectating them is always encouraged for new players and old. Participation, after some time spent in-game, is encouraged even more. Although the community is still small in comparison to a number of other shooters out there today, our community is slowly growing in size, and we’re starting to reach out to the gaming world at large to help expand, as well as reaching out to various leagues and event organizers.

So why not swing by www.fortress-forever.com and check it out? If you have any fond memories of Team Fortress, TFC, or are simply interested in trying out a new game that will hopefully appeal to you as a Quake player, I can’t recommend Fortress Forever enough. :)

I was more refering to all the silly weapons. Melee weapons that kill you in one or two hits, pyro weapons that allow you to gain 90% damage reduction while taunting. These type of things I don't care to see in an fps. I'm fine with the graphics, I actually love them.

And yes, I did play comp for a time. But even comp tf2 is extremely mild in nature to FF. FF is just way faster. Not to mention the hit reg is horrible in tf2. In FF there's never a time where I hit a 0 damage meatshot like you see in tf2 all the time.

On the contrary it is not only vanilla. I heard the EU scene only allows med unlocks, which is legit as hell.

But the NA scene on the other hand. I've watched league matches with demo knights in them. Also actual league matches are just about the only place that bans anything. If you play lobbys or pick ups, a lot of scrimm servers only blacklist the very worst items.

Even if comp was COMPLETELY vanilla. It wouldn't hold a torch to FFs comp. Tf2 comp in comparison with FF it's a snail race. If you'd like to spec some pickups you're more than welcome to.

There is a reason that nobody plays demoknight in comp - they get annihilated. It's not even any good in 32man pub games, unless you're playing against newbs.

Most items aren't banned for the simple reason that you would be handicapping yourself by using them. Almost every drop item in TF2 is a side-grade, but only a handful have any application in competitive play.

The melee weapon I'm refering to is any of the various Demo knight weapons, which aren't all banned in league play.

I have all my net settings up to the standard quo

Lerp at 15. interp at .0152 or what ever it is that soldiers use. Ask anyone who's played comp tf2 for a while. Tf2 hitreg is kind of spotty.

As for speed. I highly suggest playing FF or specing one of our pickups. It is faster. The classes themselves move faster by default. Throw in bunny hopping and FF is flying past tf2. Throw in conc grenades and there literally isn't a faster game out there right now.

What exactly about the gameplay are you perceiving to be slow? players move faster, rockets move faster. This game in pickups honestly moves at break neck speeds.

There's a spedometer hud option. Based on that it seems the scout moves at 400 units, gets up to 600 units just bunny hopping, and gets up to 1000 plus when concing. If you want to kill a scout your hitscan has to be at least that fast, and your projectiles even faster to factor in compensation. Because of how fast the offence classes are, coupled with instant respawn it's an encounter every few seconds. As opposed to tf2 comp. Where it's mostly DM for an area, then either fall back or hold, and wait for spawns/uber.

If on offence your run goes right than you should be in the enemy base for seconds. Maybe 20 seconds on smaller maps, to get in, grab the flag, and get it out. And good runs shouldn't be a problem at all if your coordinating with your team.

That video is exactly what I'm talking about - the game isn't about fighting the player, it's about fighting the map. Any actual player interaction is slow/boring. It's the same thing I hate about Warsow.

That may be how the scout is played, but that's just one class. Player to player interaction is slow at all. If you're good at any D class you have to be fast to catch the offence. And If you do the confrotation should only last a few seconds if you're doing it right.

As well the medic is the main offensive DM class. Coming in at only a little bit slower than the scout, the medic has 2 frag grenades and a double shotty. A good medic is a devestating DM class. It's your main job to swoop in fast and take out the sentry, and kill everything else when you get the chance.

If you'd like I could upload video of some extended uncut D plays to show you that it's just as fast as the scouts movement is.

The interaction paradigms are different due to movement. Being able to manouver past the defences gives you the option to avoid the usual skimrishes (having the power classes busting openings for the runners), but it also gives you the option to dodge more effectively in combat.

There's a lot of factors involved, it's just the balancing is different. I'd think the people who got to appreciate the Fortress gameplay by playing the original for Q1 would prefer the dynamics that emulate it closer. Matter of preference, i suppose.

I've watched a few dozen videos so far, and I'm not seeing it. It seems to be an alternation between fast runs (while just ignoring everything), and awkward combat that happens when you've either crashed into something/someone, or been bumped around with splash damage.

That's how the highest tier gameplay looks like, yes. From a runner's perspective. I was, however, talking about how it looks like for more casual players like myself, not necessarily focusing entirely on quick caps. It takes a lot of skill to conc thru 3/4 of the map and then navigate properly in and out of the flag room, most others are happy enough to know how to time a nade throw. :>

Point being, what you see in those vids is not really how a typical game would look like for ordinary players.

You obviously never played any Fortress game at a high caliber, I don't mean this as an insult, but more an observation to your observations.

Now, I can't speak directly to Fortress Forever, as I said in a prior post, I haven't played in many years.

However, these videos highlighting how players fight the map, when you see that one run where he avoids everything and gets out and makes the other players look like complete novices who can't stop anything, you are watching the one successful run of hundreds, if not thousands. You are also watching something that, while it seems to happen a lot due to the fact that it is in a lot of videos, it quite rare actually.

FF/Fortress functions as a CTF gamemode, however, Quake 3 CTF players may not know (and I don't know how prior quakes ctf functioned), flags are not touch return. If you move a flag to a certain spot, then die, the flag will remain there for a minute before it returns to its home spot. This is the defining aspect of fortress, and the entire game revolves around that fact. You do not fight the map. You fight for the flag. As such, when these huge flag movements/home runs (coast to coasts, as they are called) happen, it is an incredibly exciting feeling, one that has never been matched for me personally from anything in Quake.

Fortress games are also very rhythmic, and discerning and exploiting an offenses rhythm makes for a stronger defense. Hold off the attack, hold flag position, then kill resupply, get back to full health in the fraction of a window you have before the offense players return. Vice versa, change your rhythm on offense, pop in unexpectedly, attack at what they would consider an odd time, and you can break a defense.

This is also why, map knowledge in fortress, perhaps even more than in Quake (speaking for team modes) is crucial, absolutely essential. Positioning for defense is the most important aspect of it. Place a Sentry Gun in the wrong spot, forget to set pipes in the proper area as demoman, stand too far forward, too far back in an area as Soldier, and the offensive players who fly around will find that tiny hole and immediately rip it open and tear apart the defense. In order to succeed, and succeed at the highest level, you need both excellent, excellent teamwork and a very solid understanding of the map, the ins and outs, the routines and the positions.

Communication is also the hallmark of great fortress players, the faster you can relay information the faster your teamates can react to it. No different from Quake, really, but a second too late on a comm has ruined many, many, MANY, a great offense run or a defensive hold. Enemy information is right up there in importance as map knowledge, same as Quake.

As for how player interaction seems slow and map movement seems fast, well, as an outsider looking in, I can't convince you otherwise. you could only see different from actually playing the game.

I've written a lot, and upon a reread it seems somewhat incoherent, but I love fortress (specifically TFC). The feel of holding a team down to just one or two captures, or destroying everyone as a scout, flying through, getting the flag out with a single digit number left for health. Hitting an airshot on some guy aircontrolling everywhere, the rush of tying a game, the fucking relief for it when you win that super close game with a flag capture within the last few seconds of the game, nothing for me has ever come close to how fun fortress is. Nothing.

Funny enough, the video that you made for the game is a perfect example of how awkward/crude the combat/movement are in the game. I have yet to see any videos that show off any kind of advanced teamwork, positioning, or coordination. I see little to no strategy, and a generally average skill base.

You do not fight the map. You fight for the flag.

You don't seem to know what this term means. "Fighting the map" is where your primary enemy is the map itself, not the other players. It pretty much took the "team" out of "Team Fortress". The few videos I could even find with any sort of team fighting were nothing more than short-lived spamfests. I'd categorize the game closer to instagib with hooks.

You'll see a lot of the 'crashing into players/things' type of combat here, but that is just the nature of the game. Concs will have that effect, and it is the front line of defense's job to kill or hurt as many of them as possible. The last layer or two of defense you'd see much less concing and more dming, but nobody ever seemed to make a movie about that.

Fair enough, the game definitely needed some tweaking before it was the same kind of gameplay as TFC. Back in the day, the game definitely had a lack of control that TFC was so famous for, it turned off MANY tfc players due to that fact. I have no clue how it is now, keep in mind I made my video for FF about 3 and a half years ago. The game has been updated many, many times since.

Well I only discovered this game somewhat recently, and I feel like it could use some more players, so I'm pitching it to the Quake community, because it seems like a game a lot of people here might enjoy it.

the game was stillborn. trying to revive it now is like trying to dig up a 20 year old corpse and try mouth to mouth. i love real tf and really hoped ff was gonna be big, but it never picked up. im hoping the next time someone tries to do a tf game it works out better

Eh, it's worth a shot, in any case. There's a chance it might grow as a result of community efforts to raise awareness for it. :)

I understand what you're saying though. Launching a week before TF2 certainly didn't help. Regardless, I love the game too much to not attempt to bring in more players and show them why the game has been such a joy to play for me. :)

Also the game can "pick up" if people who love fortress games, like yourself, decide to hop in, maybe help promote it a little, and see where it goes. :) The more the merrier! And the more people playing, the easier it'll be to draw newcomers in.

Its alright but I'd rather play TFC plus the pickup scene is a lot more active there as well (also probably the most efficient run pickup channel I've ever seen). Also I like GldSrc a hell of a lot better than Source.. *shrugs*

I also played like 8 years of TFC so I guess theirs that influencing my opinion :p

like I said main reason is the engine. Altho FF is by far my favorite game/mod using the source engine, they did a great job with it.

And also its because TFC still exists and is very active all things considered. Its also got a lot of late night people playing at 3-5am which is when I like to game the most... I wouldn't rule out playing FF and I never said it was a BAD game its just my feelings are why play that when you could play TFC and more regularly at that? If TFC ever totally dies off you'll prob see me playing FF here and there every now and then =)

(BTW I did play FF for a couple of weeks in a clan when it was version 1.8 i believe.. many years ago, its alright!)

Depends when you logged on. Usually between 5 and 10 EST there are a few populated servers. Any ping below 100 is fine.

We're just trying to raise awareness for the game to get some newcomers; after that, we will work on a hundred more things to enrich the community such as leaves and tournaments. Pickups already happen on a daily basis.

Also, even 1 populated server with 8-16 people is enough for a game. :) Understandable why some could be turned off when they don't see truckloads of people online, but we are trying to remedy that. ;)

Oh jeez, I'm sorry. :( Yeah, I doubt 180 ping is good for *anything* outside of Assault Cube and Sauerbraten. Well there are a few servers that ping 180+ for me, and I'm on West Coast US, so those could be European servers, perchance. Regardless, most (if not all) of the community, as far as I know, is in NA right now. Hopefully with more people coming into the game (due to our efforts, we have already seen a wonderful surge of people dropping in) the global community will grow.

As the creator of the vimeo link (Plays of the Month 3), I played this game quite heavily in 2008, especially during the summer. There was a very, very small clan scene at the time and the game itself, while playable, felt very unpolished and needing some updates. Also, at the time, the game SEVERELY lacked maps that fit the gameplay well. As seen in the POTM3, most games were played on phantom (or ff_phantom_beta3 or whatever it was called), a 100% carbon copy of the map Siege from TFC, lacking any textures at all, shutdown2, and mortality. There were a plethora of others, but I maintain the opinion that (at the time) the game was a lot faster than the small, cramped TFC replicas could allow, and the gameplay never got to really flourish and flesh itself out.

That being said, after 2008 when my clan disbanded and the friends I had whilst playing the game left for other things, I quit the game as well and haven't touched it once since then. I've heard that the new updates have made the game much, much better. At the time I was playing, it was a heavily dumbed down version of Team Fortress Classic, lacking many of the small nuances and skillsets that makes TFC and fortress in general such great games. I hope it has gotten better, and I wish the best for the community, but with TFC still around for me to play on a nightly basis, I don't see any reason to 'move on' to FF.

A number of FF players play both FF and TFC regularly, so I would assume that it has indeed gotten better with numerous updates and patches. 2.45 is being actively worked on and is on the way.

I wish I could give you a better answer, but I'm relatively new to FF and the fortress genre. Thank you for wishing us the best and making that video though. :) You are more than welcome to give the game another shot. ;)

We're getting ready to hold a 3v3 league. Which is pretty lack luster compared to what could be. But it's more for fun right now. With the way things are going hopefully we can start to get some 8v8 pickups going and maybe even a 4v4 league.